Scary Spiderboy

...and his devoted sidekick the blue monkey.

Swimming this morning for Bean while Bear and I tried to get ready to go out. We walked up to Kitty's Field in East Worthing for our fun day, Bear happily wrapped up on my back for a change. Beautiful weather. I sorted out his hat and made a strap for it to stop it blowing off in the breeze - that strap saved his hat twice on the walk, and made it possible for me to put his hat back on as well: it's not easy to get a hat onto a child strapped to your own back! He fell asleep and I managed to paint a rabbit, a batman, a girly (pink) batman, a butterfly, and a full-face superman symbol before he woke up. Steve had arrived with Bean by then and took both boys off to play in the playpark while I carried on painting faces. A pink rave-culture rabbit type face (on a boy - looked awesome. Provoked the best comment of the day for me from his mate "wow! it actually looks like the picture!!" lol) and camoflage paint on a boy who didn't take my teasing very well when I asked how much he trusted me to not use pink and purple on him. My goodness he was a tough customer and kept telling me I'd got it wrong when he looked in the mirror. Hmm.

Bean got painted like spiderboy. Although my memory of spiderman facepaint involves white teardrop shapes around the eyes rather than black and he looked like a Sith lord!! And quite frightening too with his crazy hair. Great facepaint job though! Not sure what Bear thought of it. He didn't seem massively bothered, he did point and laugh at Bean a couple of times once we were home though!

They both worked on their own levels of mastery of a cargo net in the playpark. Bean managed to climb all the way up AND over and down. This is a first for him, a new level of competence! He showed off his new skill over and over and over again. Bear managed to climb up pretty high too. This is also a new skill, being aware of where to put his feet rather than just assuming they'll land on something solid. He carried this learning on when we got home, repeatedly climbing up the swingseat.

We had a barbecue when we got home. The self-lighting charcoal bags give off the most noxious fumes I've ever experienced when lighting the coals. We had to retreat indoors while it lit and settled down. And while the ribs were cooking I finally managed to get a small chocolate cake in the oven. Even though I'm not pregnant I still seem to get desires for certain foods that I can't shift out of my head - we HAD to have a barbecue and I HAD to make a chocolate cake. I wouldn't have been happy otherwise. It's pretty bad. But we managed. And I was so so cold afterwards!

Steve knocked together a simple bench by the shed and barbecue while he was cooking the ribs, and finished it afterwards - and then Bean went and forgot to wear shoes when wandering near the barbecue to help Steve, and managed to step on a tiny ember and burnt his foot so he ended up with his foot in iced water for the rest of the evening. And then Bear refused to go to sleep when I took him out for a drive. Bean was just getting out of the bath when I arrived home, defeated, so Steve took over and went out for another drive while I dealt with Bean who needed more iced water for his foot while he had his story and his bedtime milk and who then needed me to pray for his foot as he fell asleep. Poor kid. Thankfully Bear fell asleep not too long into Steve's driving stint!